Treasures of the Great Silk Road

by Edgar Knobloch

  Meanwhile, the economic situation seemed to have greatly improved. Many abandoned settlements were revived, and quite a few can be found on re-irrigated ground reclaimed from the desert. Crafts, especially pottery, had also recovered. New forms of richly decorated jars are typical of this period and, apart from unglazed pottery, we find ample evidence of glazed ceramics with decoration painted under the glaze in cinnamon, red, ochre or yellow on a white or yellowish background. Trade had revived on all main caravan routes and for Khorezm the western routes were now of particular importance. The amount of trade in this direction was growing steadily, first with Khazaria and later with the emerging Kievan Russia, as well as with the so-called Great Bulgaria on the Volga. Slaves and furs are named by Arab and Persian historians as the main goods, but amber, nuts, timber and cattle are also mentioned. Makdisi even mentions boats, cheese, fish, and ‘extremely strong bows’ among items exported from Khorezm into the lands of the caliphate. Khorezm evidently acted as a transit place for goods coming in from the north and west to be shipped to the south. This trade, traversing the Ust-Urt, naturally favoured the western outposts of the country, and Gurganj was most conveniently situated to benefit from this. To protect this route against the raids of the nomad Turks, the Oghuz or Ghuzz, the Khorezmians built a belt of fortifications, signal towers and small forts, along the whole border of the high plateau that protected all descents into the delta and the Khorezmian plain. Stone-built caravanserais and wells were spread all along the route from Gurganj to the lower Volga. The best preserved is known as Beleuli, west from the Aral Sea, with four wells. Each well was surrounded by a walled yard and had a large watering trough, hewn from a stone block. The serai itself is of the tenth or eleventh century. It is a square building of hewn stone with round turrets in the corners and with a high stone portal decorated with flat reliefs of lions.

  At the beginning of the twelfth century the Seljuk governors of Khorezm had acquired more and more independence from the sultans. It was increasingly difficult to rule the distant province; therefore more power was delegated to the governors who, after a time, revived the traditional title of Khorezmshah and reduced their dependence on the sultan to a nominal tribute. Under the Seljuk dynasty Khorezm defended itself successfully against the nomad incursions, and expanded again into its former territories, both east and west of the Aral Sea, which had been lost in times of decadence. Atsyz (1127–56) succeeded in making the country independent. His grandson Tekesh (1172–1200) transformed it into a great power, conquering Khorassan and Iraq and defeating the caliph. Tekesh’s son Muhammad II (1200–20) completed the conquest of Transoxania and extended his power as far as Ghazna, western Iraq, and Azerbaidzhan. Proud of his genius, Muhammad looked upon himself as a second Alexander. His most ambitious project was to deprive the Abbasid caliph of his remaining power. He was preparing a major campaign against Baghdad when news reached him that the Mongol armies were appearing on the eastern flank of his empire.

  We find a detailed description of thirteenth-century Khorezm in Yakut, who writes:

  I don’t think that anywhere in the world can be found larger countries than those of Khorezm and more populous in spite of the inhabitants being subjected to a laborious life and a modest standard. Most settlements in Khorezm are towns with markets of foods and with shops. You seldom find a village without a marketplace. And all this while there is general security and undisturbed peace… There is hardly a town in the world comparable to the capital of Khorezm for its riches and metropolitan grandeur, its number of inhabitants, and its proximity to wealth and fulfilment of religious aspirations and regulations.

  The irrigated areas expanded once again and the main left-bank canal was even extended some 50 miles into the desert. On the right bank whole new oases grew on reclaimed grounds. Villages were close to each other and Tolstov estimates that the density of population had quadrupled since Afrighid times, 250 years before. Kavat-Kala on the right bank is perhaps the best example of a settlement of that time. It lies only a couple of miles east from Toprak-Kala and was probably situated on the aryk which 1,000 years earlier had watered the fields around Toprak-Kala. The centre of the Kavat-Kala area is a fortified town of modest size. Inside is a ruined palace with engraved stucco ornaments. Nearby, at the canal, are four square castles with pointed arches and decorative turrets in the corners. There are no habitable towers here, and the houses flanking the walls form a square with a large open space in the middle. The walls are thin and could hardly have served any defensive purpose. All around were innumerable little farmhouses fenced with low clay walls. Feudal society is shown here in miniature. The prince who governed the area lived in the town. Local lords had castles walled purely for prestige. The farmer-serfs lived in their own little houses. However, the fortifications of the important government strongholds were far from decorative and, in fact, showed a considerable improvement in fortification techniques compared with previous periods. Protective outposts, a double row of bastions covering the flank approaches to the walls, and powerful semicircular battlements sheltering the gates, show an inventive spirit just as their huge dimensions give convincing evidence of the power and wealth of the rulers. ‘It was a short period of prosperity, of a refined civilisation flourishing in cities and unfortified mansions protected by a system of strongholds built by the ruler who concentrated all means of defence in his own hands.’10

  Chingiz-Khan dispatched only a detachment of his main army to Khorezm after the fall of Bukhara. Commanded by his two sons, Jochi and Chagatay, the army besieged Gurganj for several months. The inhabitants put up a bitter resistance. Quarter by quarter, house by house, the Mongols took the town, destroying the buildings and slaughtering the inhabitants. Then they drove the survivors out into the open. Artisans and craftsmen, of whom there were more than 100,000, were separated from the rest. The children and young women were taken into captivity as slaves. The men who remained were divided among the soldiers, and each fighting man was to execute twenty-four. After the massacre the Mongols destroyed the dam and water flooded the town. ‘Khorezm (Gurganj) became the abode of the jackal and the haunt of the owl and the kite,’ writes Juvayni.11

  The destruction of Gurganj seems to have been complete. The lands of Khorezm again became distant provinces of a vast empire, which, for their lack of pastures, had no interest for the new rulers. Yet another period of decay and oblivion followed, and when Ibn Battuta travelled to Khorezm more than 100 years later on his journey to Bukhara, he did not see a single inhabited place east of Kath.

  Until this day the desert on the right bank can be found strewn with remnants of the Mongol destruction. Kavat-Kala, Guldursun, and many others were pre-Mongol fortresses that ceased to exist after the invasion. After Toprak-Kala, Berkut-Kala etc., they represent to the archaeologist yet another layer of cultural ground – but the last in this region, for in the whole area there was hardly any post-Mongol settlement at all.

  The picture is somewhat different in the north-western part. The Volga region became an important centre for trade with the Golden Horde, and caravan routes that linked it with Khorassan and Transoxania had to pass through western Khorezm. That is why Gurganj, despite previous total destruction, was again before long a bustling, thriving city. Ibn Battuta recalls it as ‘the largest, greatest, most beautiful and most important city of the Turks, shaking under the weight of its populatiosns, with bazaars so crowded that it was difficult to pass’. Knowing that Ibn Battuta had just come from Itil, capital of the Golden Horde, this description is really worth noting.

  Very few buildings survived relatively undamaged from the pre-Mongol or immediately post-Mongol periods. For example, it is known that a palace was built in Gurganj at the same time as the palaces of Termez and Samarkand – Afrasiyab. However, nothing has yet been found of the Gurganj palace. Two mausoleums survived at Kunya-Urgench, which is the site of Gurganj.

  The mausoleum of Sultan Tekesh is a cubic structure with a sixteen-sided drum surmounted by
a high conical cupola decorated with turquoise tiles. The entrance iwan is decorated with a mukarnas wedge-shaped vault. Inside, the spherical inner dome rests on a richly decorated drum. (See 13.)

  The mausoleum of Fakhr ad-Din Razi is also cube-shaped, with a twelve-sided drum and a conical cupola with tiled ornamental decoration. The entrance is on the eastern side and the eastern façade is beautifully decorated with monochrome ornaments arranged in three rectangular sections with a frieze of Kufic script around them. Both were built either at the end of the twelfth or at the beginning of the thirteenth century. (See 8.)

  Other monuments preserved on the Kunya-Urgench site are a high minaret (almost 200ft) and two mausoleums. The minaret is high and slender with its top section damaged. It is believed to have been built around 1320–30. (See colour plate 2.) Its decoration consists of monochrome horizontal bands of baked bricks alternating with inscription bands of stylised Kufic. Some bands, probably of coloured tiles, are now missing.

  The fourteenth-century mausoleum of Najmaddin Kubr (1320–30) has an undecorated spherical dome of baked bricks and an entrance iwan with segments of blue-and-white tile ornaments and inscriptions. Inside is a cenotaph with specimens of early Khorezmian majolica.

  The mausoleum of Turabeg Khanum (second half of the fourteenth century, now in restoration) consists of a high entrance iwan with some tiled mukarnas decoration, a twelve-sided building with a round dome on a low drum and a small six-sided annexe in the rear. There are some of the first, and surprisingly mature, specimens of ornaments in tiled mosaic, executed mainly in blue, turquoise, white and brown with black, green, red and some other colours. This mausoleum was the burial site of the Sufi dynasty that ruled Khorezm between the disintegration of the Mongol Empire and the conquest of Timur.

  On the site of the former citadel a trench through a mass grave can be seen, probably dating from Timur’s destruction of Gurganj.

  The site of Tash-Kala, where most of the excavations were carried out, was one of the districts of Gurganj, which was resettled and lived in until the seventeenth century. Among the finds were foundations of an eleventh-century minaret, a gate of a caravanserai, and numerous houses of craftsmen and merchants dating from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century. Chinese porcelain and celadon-ware of the sixteenth and seventeenth century prove that trade relations with China existed at that time. Ak-Kala is a fortress of the same period.

  Nearby, on the site of Mizdakhkan, about 1 mile from Khodzheili, is another interesting mausoleum. Mizdakhkan was an important medieval town, almost equal in size to Gurganj. The mausoleum, built in 1320–30, is called Muzlum-Khan Sulu and contains some floral ornaments executed in incised terracotta, subsequently glazed with a pale-blue glaze. The cenotaph inside, like the cenotaph of the mausoleum of Khoja Alauddin in Khiva (first half of the fourteenth century), has excellent ornaments in majolica, similar to those of Najmaddin Kubr. Their basic colour is blue, while the floral design and the inscriptions are executed in white and some of the motifs (rosettes) add black, red and golden tones to the scale. In one case white letters have brown borders, in another green and yellow. Rempel12 considers Khorezmian majolica of the years 1320–60 to be the best specimens of decorative tiles in the whole history of Central Asian ornament. On monuments like the Khoja Alauddin in Khiva, local potters, designers and calligraphers were not originators, but proved themselves accomplished masters of their craft. No wonder, therefore, that in the artistic revival of Khiva in the nineteenth century artists frequently looked back to this period for inspiration.

  The Sufi dynasty came to power in Gurganj in the second half of the fourteenth century, when the Golden Horde was weakened by internal dissent. It soon extended its domination to the southern parts of the oasis, occupying Kath and Khiva, but in 1372 clashed for the first time with the rising power of Timur. According to Hookham13 the Sufi possessions endangered Timur’s interests in the caravan trade between Transoxania and the West; they also represented a dangerous political challenge.

  The campaign of 1372 resulted in the sacking of Kath and the defeat of the khan, Husayn Sufi. Peace terms agreed with the khan’s brother were not kept, and next year Timur launched a second campaign. This time the Sufi khan was brought to heel and the southern part of the oasis was annexed to Transoxania – or, according to contemporary opinion, reunited with the former Chagatay ulus. But in 1379 the Sufis rose again. Timur besieged Gurganj, and an anecdote about this is told by Hookham:14

  … the khan, Yusuf Sufi, boasted that he was prepared to meet Timur in personal combat. Why should the world face ruin and destruction because of two men? Better that the two of them should find themselves face to face in an open field to prove their valour. The challenge was accepted and Timur, in his light duelling armour, galloped towards the moat surrounding the walls. But Yusuf Sufi did not appear. Timur called out for him again and again, saying that death was preferable to a breach of faith. But Yusuf preferred life to honour. Soon after, Timur received the first melons of the season from Termez. Thinking it an incivility not to share the fruit with his neighbour who was deprived of such a pleasure, Timur put some in a golden dish and ordered them to be taken across the moat and handed to the guards for Yusuf. Khan Yusuf did not appreciate the gift. The dish was given to the gate-keeper and the melons flung into the moat.

  The siege lasted over three months, but finally the city was captured and pillaged. Another revolt followed nine years later, and in 1388 Timur mounted his final campaign to crush these indomitable foes. This time Gurganj was razed to the ground and the entire Sufi family was put to death. After a systematic destruction of the city, Timur ordered barley to be sown on the site.

  Anthony Jenkinson stayed twice in Gurganj in 1558–59. At that time the place was a mere caravan halt, where duties were levied for men, horses and camels.

  24 Madrasa Shir Dor, Samarkand

  25 Mausoleum numbers 2 and 3, Shah-i Zinda, Samarkand

  26 Shah-i Zinda, Samarkand

  27 Mausoleum Gumbaz-i Zaidin, Shahrisabz (detail)

  28 Ak Saray Palace, Shahrisabz

  This Citie or towne of Vrgence standeth in a plaine ground, with walles of earth, by estimation 4. miles about it. The buildings within it are also of earth, but ruined and out of good order: it hath one long street that is couered above, which is the place of their market.15

  Ibn Arabshah says:

  There used to advance convoys of travellers from Khorezm, making the journey in waggons as far as the Crimea, securely and without fear, a journey of about three months… But now through these places from Khorezm to the Crimea nothing moves or rests and nothing ranges there, but the antelopes and the camels…16

  About 30 miles west from Kunya-Urgench, near the border of the Ust-Urt plateau, are the ruins of another dead city. This, however, seems to have been abandoned rather than destroyed. It is called Shemakha-Kala and in the Middle Ages its name was probably Tersek. It is a strongly fortified, early medieval town, which was probably sacked by the Mongols, but continued to exist until the sixteenth or seventeeth century. The fortifications were destroyed and only a few lonely towers, some square and some round, still exist. The whole pattern of streets, lanes and avenues of the rectangular, post-Mongol plan is clearly visible. Some stone-walled houses still stand; there is a ruined mosque in the centre with its yard and several rows of columns; and we can even discern the quarters of various crafts – the potters’ district with kilns and heaps of slag, the district where iron-founders, blacksmiths and others lived and worked. Glazed pottery, china and other domestic hardware were found in profusion, but a systematic archaeological survey has not yet been carried out. Shemakha, of course, is not the only city dating from that period. There are so many ruins all around that it will take considerable time to identify them from literary references alone. Excavations, even if concentrated on essential sites only, may last for generations.

  Close to Shemakha, for example, there was another town, Vazir, which was also visite
d by Anthony Jenkinson in 1558.

  This Castle of Sellizure [Shahr-i Vazir] is situated upon a high hill where the king called the Can lyeth, whose palace is built of earth very basely, and not strong: the people are but poore, and little trade of marchandise among them. The South part of this Castle is lowe lande, but very fruitfull, where growe many good fruites among which there is one called a Dynie of a great bignesse and full of moysture, which the people doe eate after meate in steade of drinke… The water that serueth all that Countrey is drawen by diches out of the riuer Oxus, vnto the great destruction of the said riuer, for which cause it falleth not into the Caspian sea as it hath done in times past, and in short time all that lande is like to be destroyed, and to become a wilderness for want of water, when the riuer of Oxus shall faile.17

  Tolstov identifies Vazir with the ruins called Dev-Kesken-Kala on the southern tip of the Ust-Urt. He describes it as a mighty rectangle of walls built of unhewn stone, with many towers and bastions, and a deep moat cut into the rock. Inside the walls can be found many remnants of stone buildings, dating from the late Middle Ages. The foundations of the walls and the citadel may be ancient, but the last period of the city’s life was during the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Below the upper town and close to the rock is a second rectangle, the lower town, with medieval walls of unbaked bricks and surrounded by the dry riverbed of what once was a branch of the Amu Darya.